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Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Police Involved Shooting Statistics: A National One-Year Summary

In 2011, according to data I collected, police officers in the United States shot 1,146 people, killing 607. Between January 1, 2011 and January 1, 2012 I used the Internet to compile a national database of police involved shootings. The term "police involved shooting" pertains to law enforcement officers who, in the line of duty, discharge their guns. When journalists and police administrators use the term, they include the shooting of animals and shots that miss their targets. My case files only include instances in which a person is either killed or wounded by police gunfire. My data also includes off-duty officers who discharged their weapons in law enforcement situations. They don't include, for example, officers using their firearms to resolve personal disputes.

I collected this data myself because the U.S. Government doesn't. There is no national database dedicated to police involved shootings. Alan Maimon, in his article, "National Data on Shootings by Police Not Collected," published on November 28, 2011 in the "Las Vegas Review-Journal," wrote "The nation's leading law enforcement agency [FBI] collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life."

Since the government keeps statistics on just about everything, why no national stats on something this important? The answer is simple: they don't want us to know. Why? Because police shoot a lot more people than we think, and the government, while good at statistics, is also good at secrecy.

The government does maintain records on how many police officers are killed every year in the line of duty. In 2010, 59 officers were shot to death among 122 killed while on the job. This marked a 20 percent jump from 2009 when 49 officers were killed by gunfire. In 2011, 173 officers died, from all causes, in the line of duty. The fact police officers feel they are increasingly under attack from the public may help explain why they are shooting so many citizens.

Who The Police Shoot

A vast majority of the people shot by the police in 2011 were men between the ages 25 and 40 who had histories of crime. Overall, people shot by the police were much older than the typical first-time arrestee. A significant number of the people wounded and killed by the authorities were over fifty, some in their eighties. In 2011, the police shot two 15-year-olds, and a girl who was 16.

The police shot, in 2011, about 50 women, most of whom were armed with knives and had histories of emotional distress. Overall, about a quarter of those shot were either mentally ill and/or suicidal. Many of these were "suicide-by-cop" cases.

Most police shooting victims were armed with handguns. The next most common weapon involved vehicles (used as weapons), followed by knives (and other sharp objects), shotguns, and rifles. Very few of these people carried assault weapons, and a small percentage were unarmed. About 50 subjects were armed with BB-guns, pellet guns or replica firearms.

The situations that brought police shooters and their targets together included domestic and other disturbances; crimes in progress such as robbery, assault and carjacking; the execution of arrest warrants; drug raids; gang activities; routine traffic stops; car chases; and standoff and hostage events.

Women make up about 15 percent of the nation's uniformed police services. During 2011, about 25 female police officers wounded or killed civilians. None of these officers had shot anyone in the past. While the vast majority of police officers never fire their guns in the line of duty, 15 officers who did shoot someone in 2011, had shot at least one person before. (This figure is probably low because police departments don't like to report such statistics.) Most police shootings involved members of police departments followed by sheriff's deputies, the state police, and federal officers. These shootings took place in big cities, suburban areas, towns, and in rural areas. Big city shootings comprised about half of these violent confrontations in 2011.

Police Shooting Investigations

Almost all police involved shootings, while investigated by special units, prosecutor's offices, or an outside police agency, were investigated by governmental law enforcement personnel. It is perhaps not surprising that more than 95 percent of all police involved shootings were ruled administratively and legally justiified. A handful of cases led to wrongful death lawsuits. Even fewer will result in the criminal prosecution of officers. Critics of the system have called for the establishment of completely independent investigative agencies in cases of police involved shootings.

In 1971, police officers in New York City shot 314 people, killing 93. (In California, the state with the most police involved shootings in 2011, the police shot 183, killing 102.) In 2010, New York City police shot 24, killing 8. Last year, in the nation's largest city, the police shot 16, killing 6. In Columbus, Ohio, a city one eighth the size of New York, the police shot 14, killing 8. Statistical diversities like this suggest that in the cities with the highest per capita shooting rates, better people ought to be hired, or the existing forces need a lot more training in the use of deadly force.

In 1994 the Justice department was charged by Congress with tracking police shootings and statistics. Given the ""Top Cop"" attitude and minstrel show in Washington, it has NEVER been accomplished under any administration. In all probability never will even though it is in all probability being paid for. More contempt for the taxpayer and maleficence by elected officials

Tracking municipal, county, or state police involved shooting statistics are not the job of the federal gov't.Maybe they should be.But like someone suggested above, perhaps links should be given as to where the article's info comes from. It looks more reputable that way.

I have done similar studies and use square miles and several media outlets to come to estimates and percentages. I agree with your numbers at least being well within the park. I would say they are conservative.

If the majority were shot during violent acts or were armed or were bent on suicide by cop then I really do not understand where you can imagine the problem is? There is simply a movement here in America to try and eliminate the police. The problem with this is simple, sure we'de like to think people are all civilized and could govern ourselves without them..but seriously? Grow up! Human beings are the most despicable creatures in our universe and would gleefully take advantage of any opportunity to do unspeakable acts against you, me and anyone and everyone they could. You are living in some made up world if you believe otherwise!

I think the problem could stem from who is being hired for the police jobs. Seems to me more and more departments are hiring young vets that come back from the wars. Seems like many vets come home with mental problems, from their experiences, and unfortunately they are being hired as police. Very Bad combination. They are trained to police a war zone and then they come back try to police a community.

So when a doctor is investigated for malpractice, we should use people with no medical training to investigate them? That is dumb. Just as dumb as having someone with no law enforcement experience investigate a police involved shooting.

The point is that it is a glaring conflict of interest to have investigations and prosecutions by internal affairs, prosecutors and judges because they are all paid by and represent the same entity; the state.

There is no correlation between doctors(highly educated for complex tasks) and police actions( very low level thought processes)so your comment on this subject also exhibits low level thought processes mr June 9 2012 at 12:08am.

If you don't think that an internal affairs investigator won't throw an officer found in a bad shooting ton the wolves, then you truly have no understanding of the regulations governing law enforcement officers. In stead of making assumptions and accusations, you should learn the deadly force laws yourself. Then you would be able to see the truth, be it a hard truth, and not just see the dumb and ignorant shoot first ask later that you as well as the media currently see. You meet force with greater force. Not force with what do I think the easiest option would be. That line of thinking and the people getting shot will be the officers, not the scum bag that made the choice to threaten the lives and safety of everyone involved.

My guess is your a cop. Cops troll these types of sites to comment in favor of the cop.I believe the article was about cops who kill people with complete immunity.If you want to compare cops who are trigger happy to Doctors and malpractice ,so be it.Atleast they do get reprimanded which doesn't happen to cops because they have their own law within the law and they already investigate themselves .That is why Mr Fisher was able to write this article. Problem is ,now this seems to be happening more and more,.Ppl are opening their eyes and the cops who have had a license to kill are now being called out for it.

Your are an uneducated, uninformed, person who expresses opinion, rather than fact. You really should do your homework before posting your comments. Your nonsense and ramble give you away. Do you believe that every shooting incident was unjustified or in self defense or are you seriously suggesting that the police just randomly shot/killed 603 people for kicks? I hate people like you who find any reason to point the finger and make accusations. I would bet a years pay that you have never done anything but anybody but yourself and had never served this country or your community in any manner other than to try and tear it down. I'm betting you tried to be a police officer and they wouldn't accept you and now your just bitter and ignorant.

May I cite you as an example? I recently finished a paper identifying defense mechanisms; specifically in LEOs (as I have been, and occasionally still work with). My observations were that there are several obvious defense mechanisms which are characteristic of LEOs. Now, several days after completion, I have some perfect examples in one's own font of regression, denial and projection. And each with a vivid, almost violent scent to them.

This is the sort of overreaction which is a potential contributor to increased police shootings. I certainly don't think that officers shoot people "for kicks", but impulse control is not high on the list of desired traits for most police officers... a standard requirement for an officer is that he/she be capable of "acting". It is difficult to find persons who can act in an appropriate manner under pressure and be capable of effectively articulating their choices and managing a situation with finesse... that said, they look for people capable of acting... period. The majority of the good cops end up as administrators or instructors, some stay on a beat or move into a specialization, but many don't move beyond their beats, and if they don't excel, they are moved to nights where there is a greater chance that complaints against them will be dismissed as the percentage of civilian idiots to non-idiots is at a higher ratio during that time of day.

Back to my point, I do appreciate the example... unfortunately, your response completes the stereotype that you are attempting to discredit (often a product of regression). Focus on your service of others. Billy-bad-ass is great to watch in made for TV movies, but if you are looking for effective tactics a piece of advise which I was given many years ago, and give out as often as I think of it: "walk softly and carry a big stick". Talking down a mentally disturbed individual or even dealing with public servants hopped up on their own views of themselves, I always speak with courtesy listen; to start. That doesn't mean that I haven't planned out the next 3 steps if someone wants to get stupid, or that my finger isn't indexed along my Smith as my hand naturally falls under the front of my jacket in a manner which appears as though my hands are crossed in a non-threatening manner.

Simply because I am ready for whatever someone wants to throw this direction, doesn't mean that I escalate the situation and draw them in. My goal is the end game; but if the desired outcome for so many with an overbearing ego, is the stimulation of that ego and a feeling of sexual gratification which quickly dissipates once they have drawn everyone's attention to themselves as they made an ass of themselves... if that's the desired end result, we have alot of results oriented officers out there. A bit like frat boys who never grew up... driven by basic social needs, and a belief that in order to prove themselves they must constantly be overbearing and obsessive about their own importance.

Just thought I'd share, as this string of comments seems to have a few good (albeit extreme) examples of the type of psyche which runs rampant in (primarily city and county agencies) law enforcement; it's unfortunate, however a stereotype becomes one, because it frequently occurs. One day, perhaps LEO's will begin to understand that it is the comments such as yours which turn people off... that IS the reason which supports the theory that many cops possess this unstable mentality which is often at the root of stupid shootings... Just speaking from my first hand experiences

Not to hijack but, I wrote an email to our Sheriff concerning a tactic that I observed his deputies using that I thought counter-productive to their stated goal and un-becoming of their station as public servants. The result? Several half baked accusations about my motive for sending such an email in reply and about a month of attention from deputies "patrolling" our private road and pulling me over every time I left the neighborhood. IOW, harassment from a Sheriff that couldn't take constructive criticism.

The US is a neofascist country with more private police and snoops than Nazi Germany could muster. I was nearly struck head-on by a recklessly speeding police car a few weeks ago. When I tried to find out who was blameworthy, the local sheriff's office told me about a couple of cars that were speeding to some alleged offense but the "investigator" said both cars had supposedly turned off onto another road farther away than where my close call occurred. Obviously, one or more of the cops driving lied; I suspect they were taking different routes to the same problem area and were racing to see who could reach it first. One of them was the fool who almost hit me head on at 70 miles an hour or more.

YES! Police and government should be investigated by citizens. You work for us not the city. Even though the Police are a revenue generating division of the executive branch.

I believe we need to take it a step further, if a police officer is involved in a shooting they should be arrested just like any other citizen, post bail and tired in court. Not an internal investigation with protection from a union rep. Unions should be eliminated from criminal court and the police.

Police Involved Shootings that result in injury or damage of any type should be tried in an open court, in the exact same manner that they would or wouldn't be for any average citizen who performed the same actions. Any "Internal Investigation" that I read about in one of these cases just makes me roll my eyes, because that's code for "...we're keeping the officer behind a desk until everybody forgets about it and then we can quietly drop any charges of wrongdoing against him or her". (Usually a frat-boy 'him' with ego problems, obviously.)

All these comments about police corruption, nazi Germany etc. Is why we have police.

A poster copy's and paste a bunch of outdated statistics and then is asked to back it up and low and behold he/she can't.

I love the part where this person is trying to belittle the police profession by saying that police have low intelligence and very little education. What's funny is that the police with no education keep putting the criminals in jail, probably the same ones commenting .

Through my life experiences I find that 95% of the people that don't like the police were usually ones that couldn't conform to society's rules and made excuse after excuse as to why they were arrested.

Then another one of my faves is when I hear " you work for us, we pay your salary". YOU HAVE TO PAY TAXES TO PAY THEIR SALARY you derelict .

There are roughly 900,000 police officers in the United States. Cops are well aware that there are people (very few) that don't like the police. For whatever reason people think they need to be keyboard commando's and spew their idiotic views.

I would bet that most police officers working in today's world have a higher level of education and make more money then the cowards that take shots here.

Big deal, you don't like cops. Get over it, we are not ever going away.

I think you may have missed what the commenters are trying to say.It looks as though they are talking more about the police shooting and killing people who haven't comited a bad crime like the boy in St Louis just the other day.This kids was walking down the street and I guess he was supposed to be the sidewalk and got shot eight times by a police officer.I'm almost sure this is the kind of shootings and killing they are referring to.Just about everyone in the US are trying to vote out corrupt political figures now and sooner or later they will get the riff raff out of the police departments all over the US.You are right about one thing and that is the police aren't going anywhere but it going be harder for some police to keep their jobs.

"Big deal, you don't like cops. Get over it, we are not ever going away. " 1. It is a Big Deal. A VERY Big Deal because we are sick of cops killing innocent people and getting away with it. It has happened a lot and is becoming more and more frequent. We are sick of being told "he acted appropriately" by District Attorneys after a child is gunned down in the street because some gung ho wannabe rambo cop thought the replica AK the kid was carrying was real. We don't care what that cops perceived threat was when he decided to blast the kid seven times. We are sick of this crap! We are not just going to get over it. 2. I think you are sadly mistaken. I think you guys ARE going away. I think you guys are going to keep policing like a bunch of meat heads (as your post would seem to suggest) until society has had enough and starts holding you guys accountable. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be the next day, but that day is coming. You guys need to realize this isn't a winnable battle for you. And trust me, there aren't just a few people who hate cops. You obviously surround yourself with people who are cop friendly - your perception is warped. The fact that you think the only people who hate cops are criminals who get arrested repeatedly shows just how out of touch with reality you guys are.

Most every department requires an associats degree and officers continue various training through the department. Even more departments are now requiring people have a Bachelors degree to be considered and lots of departments only accept the people who placed in the top ten percentile of their academy.

I would challenge any one talking crap about officers and the career to put themselves through an academy and work the job for a while THEN come back and speak. Oh and I challenge you to apply to and work the most dangerous cities in your state IF you're able to pass the academy and all the testing.

As this is obviously something people are passionate about, I would say this. No one, police, military or private citizen, shoot anyone without an investigation. The difference between the private citizen and the military/police is that they volunteer their lives to provide a service to the community. They are entrusted with the right to use lethal force as necessary. The investigation happens regardless. There are very few people, the majority of the people taking verbal shots at the police, who make this sacrifice.Being a police officer is like any other job. Some of them are jerks, some don't belong in the job but get through, but the absolute majority, over 99%, are doing nothing besides serving their community.

The pay of a police officer is low by the standards of any private sector job. And, contrary to the majority of the remarks made earlier, it requires at least a bachelor's degree to do it in most major departments. These people are not unintelligent.

Anyone who is under a lot of stress, experiencing a long shift (which we all have done) and dealing with people (customer service reps) who are also responsible for keeping not only themselves safe but also everyone else in the public do rash things. Does that mean it is wrong? No. No one besides someone who has been in that situation can determine if the right choice was made (I.A.)

As the previous poster said, do a ride-along with the police. Look where the majority of these shootings take place. Urban areas that have a high rate of violent crime. You wouldn't walk down the streets of Chicago or St. Louis, in the "ghetto", unless you had to. Yet these officers work there everyday.

It is not white people killing black people, officers killing civilians. It is people defending themselves, which every American has the inherent right to do, regardless of your race or occupation.

I completely agree! The constitution says we have a right to be tried by a jury of our peers, an officer's peers would be other officers. Other officers that understand and have been in the situation and who are not speaking from hind sight! It would not be fair or just to the officer who lays his life on the line every day to be judged by a civilian who has never been put in a kill or be killed situation. Instead of blaming the officer for shooting the child who has a replica ak47 or replica desert eagle how about you blame the parents for letting there child play with a replica firearm. Its called a replica for a reason!!! Its supposed to replicate a real firearm, so its the officers fault for assuming that its an actual firearm when in the line of duty the percentage of the time that a gun pulled on an officer is "fake" is less than 3%. This line of thought is completely absurd!!People need to learn how to follow police direction and not question and deviate from the direction given. If an officer puts your hands up and don't move then do it!! its not that hard of a concept to grasp, making sudden movements and reaching for things puts you and the officer in bad position. This is just common sense. Its called implied consent if an officer has made a lawful stop you have to comply with any of his requests!! People need to put themselves in the officers position than think how would I have handled that when I know my life is on the line and it could possible be a kill or be killed situation.

Wow looks like the Pig union got busy on this right away. IF PIGS don't like the idea that they are entrusted to enforce law not summarily execute people then perhaps the PIGs should just go someplace else!

I thought I saw somewhere on the FBI Institute of justice site how many fatal shootings occurred around the US involving police departments. It was 300 or so. Also it would be interesting to see how many contacts are made on a daily basis among agencies in the US and the ratio of police contacts to police shootings. I would guess it is less that 1 % of the time.

If you read the post thoroughly he states that women make up approximately 15% if the force. Jeeeesh. People. Maybe read and then think before you go off half cocked with defensive reactions. Consider a thoughtful reply. Do your research, and by all means, check your grammar. This guy is doing a great service by checking lots of facts and aggregating information that otherwise wouldn't be.

As a former U.S. Airborne infantryman my argument is simple, if our troops must wait until the enemy fires at them before returning fire why don't these so-called highly trained police. I know most of the police in my community and honestly a large number of them were guys we picked on in school who went out and got a badge and a gun so they can be tough. Now the police do provide a vital service, but if I get no extra protection under the law as one who REALLY risked his life daily for this country then cops should not get any either.

Most of the police officers I know are former military with combat experience and degrees in Criminal Justice. The scenario you describe as police being people inyour community being people who you picked on in high school identifies you as a bully who is projecting his own attitudes and experience onto others. You can't become a police officer in most places in the US without a high school diploma and at least 2 years of college. You then have to go through the police academy which incudes academic subjects and physical training (unfortunately not enough marksmanship). Before becoming a police office you must also go through intense psychological testing and interviews. That is not required of an infantryman. The fact is that 70% of all police officers retire without ever firing their weapon other than on the range. The other 30% tend to be in high crime areas, SWAT teams (almost 100% former military) or drug related assignments where the most violence occurs.

The arrests are a very small portion of the total contacts with the public!

So maybe some supposedly smart people can define in real numbers what the actual risk is, rather than squealing and washing a broad brush over all the nearly 1 million police officers in the US.

Example: US Bureau of Justice 2008

http : // www . bjs . gov/index . cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2229

An estimated 17.7 million persons age 16 or older indicated that their most recent contact with the police in 2008 was as a driver pulled over in a traffic stop.

These drivers represented 8.4% of the nation’s 209 million drivers.

Funny how thats only a portion of the contacts police make...why is that?

So lets see that brain power and demonstrate with REAL DATA WHAT THE BIG PICTURE IS!

Cause lets be real, if you cant quantify the problem in real world facts, there isnt a real world problem!

But hey, when 639,908 cops have been assaulted/injured/killed by felonious assault (FBI UCR Database) only since 2002, and there are what 1 million cops at most in the United States.....does one really wonder WHY cops are agressive against ANYONE they see as a potential threat?

What is the tactical reality when encountering a potential armed of violent contact?

Saw a police chase on TV in Houston a couple years ago, felon high on meth, ended in a foot chase after he crashed his vehicle, the police hit him with a dozen tazer shots, and 9 NFL size linebacker cops piled on him to subdue him and still that man was wiggling.

Think thats an abnormality in police encounters, NOPE!

You activists cant even provide any evidence of how many of the incidents were not justified......all you have is rhetoric and emotional diatribe, which is IRRELEVENT!

Lets see some real world data, or you will be ignored as just another chicken little squealing the sky is falling....

"in the cities with the highest per capita shooting rates, better people ought to be hired, or the existing forces need a lot more training in the use of deadly force." Blame it all on the police, right The police shot 24 people in NYC in 2010, only eight of them fatally. In 2011, the police shot 16 people, ONLY 16, 6 of them fatally. There were 445 gun murders in NYC in 2011. Now, who is killing who in NYC? Which cities in the US have the highest crime rates? Which cities are most likely to have people shooting at the police? The ones with largely minority populations! And NYC has a mix of minorities that is well above 50% of the population!

Yes, the police should be blamed. What from I can find our police shot more citizens than any other country besides China. Something is seriously wrong when our law enforcement kills that many people and no other country does the same.

We have a higher homicide rate than any other developed country. I would put the blame more on a violent population than to jump to the conclusion that the police are murders. The million state, local, and Federal officers and agents only killed 607 people out of a total population of 313 million, and almost all of the "victims" were armed.

Yes, blame police: they are supposedly TRAINED, trained not to panic in difficult situations. How about the Georgia cop who shot and killed a boy for answering his own door with his Wii remote in his hand? Blame that one on a "violent" population?

I can panic with a firearm as well as anyone. Hire me! I'll work lots cheaper, too, since you won't have to pay for my "training".

607 people is obviously too high of a number, and I wish we had an easy answer for how to bring that down. I doubt that "training" is a real answer, because that's been the standard response for any such atrocity for the past 30 years.

That being said... people tend to forget that the U.S. is the THIRD largest country in the world, by population, led only by India and China. 318.46 million people, as of today. Divided into total population, that's 0.0000019 percent of all people in the U.S. If there are 1 million officers on duty every day, and each officer interacts with 10 people per day, that would be 0.03 percent of all police interactions with citizens of the U.S. On top of which, in the brief mention of New York City, "In 1971, police officers in New York City shot 314 people, killing 93"... that compared to 2011 numbers (16 and 6) means that -something- positive definitely happened between 1971 and 2011. That number alone represents a massive improvement of something that could be much worse than it is.

Yes, I'm just playing 'devil's advocate' here - but it helps to keep in mind that over a million officers are involved in tens of millions of interactions every day, and out of those very large numbers - less than 2 citizens per day become an (almost unrecorded) statistic in Police Involved Shootings. Which means that the vast majority of these officers are doing their jobs properly, and that you will likely not be shot by one the next time they talk to you (for whatever reason), and it's extremely unlikely that they'll break down your door and shoot your dog tonight.

However... as I said above, these investigations need to be held in an open court and not kept as an "internal matter". There is a glaringly obvious conflict of interest in asking the police to police the police after a shooting of this type, so it's no wonder that there's such a massive outrage today over these events.

Beyond that I would only add the next most obvious point, which I don't think I've seen anyone mention here yet... SWAT teams do -not- need to be serving arrest warrants on U.S. citizens (which has gone from ~5000 in 1983 to ~90,000 in 2013), and the so-called "no-knock raid" on a private home should NEVER have been declared legal by the U.S. Supreme Court. That one decision alone has been responsible for thousands of deaths of innocent people over the past decade or so. SWAT teams have a definite purpose - they are a police response to a violent threat. Serving an arrest warrant at 3 am, regardless of the house, is NOT an appropriate SWAT response to a violent threat. Whoever came up with THAT idea desperately needs to be in a prison cell for the next 50 years, because THAT person has caused those deaths of those thousands of innocent people.

Good question. The police do not keep track of how many dogs they kill every year. Nationwide, the figure would certainly be in the hundreds, maybe thousands. A few years ago, SWAT team officers in Maryland, while raiding the wrong house, killed two of the occupant's dogs. The house they wrongly raided belonged to the mayor of the town.

I have started keeping track of it. The PuppycideDB I started is new, only about a month old, but already has close to 700 records that are available using a custom built search engine. I'm also publishing FOIA and court documents. Check it out and help out - adding a record only takes a few minutes of your time - https://puppycidedb.com

Excellent work compiling this data. The fact there is no record keeping of this just seems shady on the part of law enforcement. If they keep a record of officers gunned down, why not citizens as well? Unjustified shooting happens a lot more that the general public is aware of. Sadly, the general public does not appear to be interested in many of the pressing issues regarding the emergence of a police state and the blatant disregard for the constitution.

I do not believe we have enough data to conclude that females in law enforcement has resulted in the use of more deadly force. I think male and female officers are using more force because they have become militarized. But these are important questions that should be answered.

Interesting supposition. I agree, but not completely "militarized". The officers I worked with who were prior military (which were many) have a degree of self discipline not find in most strictly civilian cops. Additionally, firing on someone is truly a last resort (not simply a department mantra which must be recited to the press). Our intent is to handle situations with as little violence as necessary. This does two things: First, it makes the encounter much less dangerous for all parties involved (I'm not suggesting that one lose their mindset... I'm simply saying that the outward appearance should be one which deescalates situations). Secondly, if the demeanor is pleasant and respectful (in most cases), once it becomes obvious that an apprehension must occur, or that violence will be necessary, moving forward with extreme violence and surprise, will give a significant advantage to the officer, rather than acting like an ass, escalating the situation and the walking right into your perp's fist because your attitude projected your actions from a mile away.

I think the poster used "militarized" not to mean past military but rather the way in which police work is conducted now vs. the past. Police once wore pressed uniforms. Today they go to work wearing body armor, boots, trousers bloused or full on BDU's. Even small departments have armored vehicles more suited to the battle field. This level of "arming up" prior to shift has to skew the psychology of officers in the direction of combat and they seem to spoil for it.

In 2011 in England and Wales, only 2 people were killed by the police. If the US had the same rate of killings by police officers as we do then in 2011 you would have had 11 people killed instead of 607.

Anonymous, you really should think about creating your own website and personal blog. You have a lot of ideas, insights, and opinions that the law enforcement community would find fascination, as I am sure the general public would. .

Regarding the comments about the civilians being more violent, it is a illogical comparison. How many of those civilians are mentally ill? the police are held to higher standards, they have more training and as poignantly noted, the police have forms of non-lethal engagement to neutralize a threat.

Civilians are not more violent, according to long term trends in homicide. On the other hand, police are, apparently. I looked at this issue seriously a dozen years or so ago, and fatal shootings by cops were about 175/year, and cops killed by shootings (in the line of duty) numbered about 70. Interestingly, for one year at least, 7 of the 70 were killed by fellow cops. (Self inflicted shootings by cops are much higher, but many of these are suicides not in the line of duty.)

It is extremely difficult to determine what fraction of victims of cop shootings were unarmed, but back then it seemed to be in the range of 1/3, including guns, knives, and other deadly weapons. This is in sharp contrast to Fisher's statement that only a small percentage were unarmed. One reasonable interpretation is that cops use throw-down weapons in almost all shootings now, as opposed to 20 years ago.

Really??? Lets see your research to prove that one. All of you are expressing opinions or based on data from poorly researched articles like this one! Good God! Know wonder our country is in the state that it is in! We are seriously doomed. Perhaps the level of ignorance, poor decision making and stupidity in this country is one reason the police are forced to defend themselves more often.

I would surmise there is a high percentage of criminals and every day people who walk freely around who have some degree of mental illness. Yes officers are trained to deal with people with mental issues and in some cases the officer are successful resolving the issues without firing a shot. However officers must and will react in those instances when some threatens an officer or civilian with a weapon regardless if that person has a mental illness or not..

"The nation's leading law enforcement agency [FBI] collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force. In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life."

Um, gee - maybe because when police use deadly force against a criminal IT'S NOT A CRIME?

They are not hired as judge, jury, and executioner. All those who have been shot are not suspects. It is a valid statistic that is intentionally being overlooked. It is true however that police rarely seemed to be found guilty no matter how negligent they may be in their duties.

It is attitudes of "I am the law!" held by unbalanced police officers and sympathizers of police states that fear civilians having access to good data. For the same reason that campuses need to report violent crimes to a central clearing house that makes data public, all police organizations should be required to do the same. Both are important data to citizens and should be accessible. In this country, cops ultimately report to citizens, not the other way around, althought militarization is trying to change this. Cops who don't like this situation can play "I am the law!" in some police state abroad.

Thank you for compiling this data. The media reports these police shooting incidents as justified actions, i.e. protecting the public. And while I am sure the incidents are reviewed by a police chief, the media never publishes the final report. Another topic, I don't understand why they shoot people with knives....doesn't the person with the gun always win? There was an incident in a costco near me, where the police shot dead this mentally ill women holding a knife. 2 policeman responded, and when she wouldn't release the knife, he shot her, and also wounded the other officer. Aren't the police trained in how to disarm a person with a knife? I think I could have disarmed her all by myself, or talked her down. It just seems the police go for their gun too quickly. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/deputy-woman-shot-at-costco-in-loudoun-county/2013/05/29/e5c4656a-c897-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html

I tell you what, I'll come at you with a knife. You try and date it from me. I guarantee that you will either be in a hospital getting a lot of stitches or in a body bag. A knife is a deadly weapon and should be treated as such. I'm retired military, and not a cop. Just putting that out there because its an automatic accusation of people who don't "toe the liberal line."

Police need no statistics to support their defensiveness: it's a part of their sociology. 2011 was a local peak for officer fatalities, but the trend line for officer deaths of all kinds has been steadily decreasing. Even in 2011, violence against police accounted for only half of the fatalities. Accidents and occupational illness were equally lethal. Most importantly, police kill civilians at more than 5 times the rate of the reverse. That's a small group of people doing a lot of killing, then writing themselves the official account of why it happened.

http://www.nleomf.org/facts/research-bulletins/

>>The government does maintain records on how many police officers are killed every year in the line of duty. In 2010, 59 officers were shot to death among 122 killed while on the job. This marked a 20 percent jump from 2009 when 49 officers were killed by gunfire. In 2011, 173 officers died, from all causes, in the line of duty. The fact police officers feel they are increasingly under attack from the public may help explain why they are shooting so many citizens.<<

THE LAST SENTENCE IN THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH READS:" THE FACT POLICE OFFICERS FEEL THEY ARE INCREASINGLY UNDER ATTACK FROM THE PUBLIC MAY HELP EXPLAIN WHY THEY ARE SHOOTING SO MANY CITIZENS" So who ever wrote this garbage, if an officer can't handle to be in the public much less be a public servant to protect & serve his community, should lay down his badge. Pressure from the job doesn't give any police officer the right to fire his weapon with the intent to kill.

It is our mentally ill that are being killed. Why because they have no were to turn and cant afford medications or to sick to know that they need it. police need more training on how to confront them rather than killings them . The majority aren't criminals they are sick . If the officer is to scared for the job and becomes trigger happy let him or her go to McDonalds. and work there.

Clearly (and understandably) this is a heated topic, which is often the case regarding homicides. I am currently doing research of the topic of the phenomenom of Suicide by Cop. I am attempting to compile statistics and am looking for suggestions on this data collection. Colleagues and I are hoping to develop better training procedures for officers to identify a suicidal non threat individual and one who indeed poses a threat.

They sold us on the implementation of the "non-lethal" Taser as a better alternative to shooting- that was obviously BS all along. Now they use the Taser as an alternative to talking to people in a civilized manner.

Every cop has "probably" wondered what it would be like to actually shoot someone; could he or she actually do it if the need arose? In my opinion, some (a minority to be sure) have gone ahead and put themselves to THAT test. As I reflect back, evenas far as the 60's, I can recall scores of reported and televised incidents where the police went way beyond what was required and sadly they often get away with it. How dare we question theintegrity of "our nation's finest"! Bottom line: Far too often callingon the cops to interveen in some problem can often result intheir poor judgement and the bullets start flying. There does need to be a closer watch on incidents of "death by cop" and itshouldn't be done by any law enforcement agency directly involved...it would resemble Obama's people investigating themselves...............NOT!.

What I can see is a civil war from law enforcement against the very people that feed them. Now: It's this a issue in other potencies countries? In the police academy there are a big % of students full of frustrations, reason Why the end trying became P.O. . . Like as a medication or psiqui treatment wear in P.O. uniform.

Thank you for researching the data and making this blog post. I wonder, how did you compile the information? Anecdotally (and it's clear from your post that there is no official source of this information, so how else could I speculate but anecdotally), my initial reaction is that your numbers of police killings seem low. Does it seem so to you?

It seems to me that the relative likelihood that a police officer could be shot or killed should be taken into consideration when we judge whether deadly force was justified.

I am encouraged by the fact that the number of police shootings in larger cities has declined significantly over the years (e.g., New York), and I can only conclude that better training is a major reason for this.

I also wonder about the effectiveness (vis a vis' instances of death) of the seemingly-popular police "SWAT-style" raids when executing warrants.

I searched the Internet every day for a year and took note of each police-inolved shooting and the basic facts of the case. I may have missing some cases so if anything, my numbers might be low. In my view, having studied these cases and ones that have followed, a lot of police shootings, while legal and even administratively approved, are unnecessary. Thank's for you comment and question.

You should be stating facts and not your pathetic opinions to sway the other nut jobs on this site. I suppose tho this is the only way you try to validate your existence. Why don't you go head to head in a public forum and spew your rhetoric. I bet you don't show up!

I do not have current numbers on this but estimate PSP officers shoot between 5 and10 people a year. I have no idea how many pets are killed every year by police officers but suspect the number is shockingly high.

I used to take mentally challenged citizens to several PSP stations,to do cleaning. I witnessed troopers loading their cars,preparing to go on patrol. Talk about firepower. 1 semi automatic handgun,1 shotgun and 1 automatic AR-15. With extra ammo. Why in the world do they need automatic weapons? So they can murder more innocent people and pets?

The "North Hollywood Shootout", as it's called, on Feb. 28, 1997 caught the L.A. police department by surprise. None of the officers involved had rifles with them, only pistols (and, I believe, a few shotguns). It was only about halfway through the confrontation that SWAT teams arrived with rifles that could answer force-for-force with the two shooters.

Since that time (in my opinion), police departments all over the entire country have been referencing that one event and insisting to their local governments that they need to be carrying heavier weapons than they had been up to that point. Well, now most of them are. In addition, most of them are now involved in "training" that makes them believe they are proficient in the use of such weapons.

Unfortunately (in my opinion), those officers who believe their "training" gives them the judgement to decide -when- to use such weapons is probably a key to why there seem to be more incidents of Police Involved Shootings every year. Which is why I'm so derisive of reading (or hearing) the word "training" tossed about so loosely as the solution to all of these problems. The "training" they always talk about is not the end-answer to these problems, it's only the first step of a complicated path that officers need to walk down to use proper judgement when faced with a dangerous situation.

The majority of officers realize this and act accordingly. A few do not, and their egos kill innocent people. It might actually solve these problems if these officers were removed from their duty (or put in prison) once they've proven they have poor judgement, but these "internal investigations" (and intense arguments from police union reps) put them back on duty and these problems continue to get worse. In addition, other officers would certainly notice that showing poor judgement gets them removed from the force, which would further reduce the problems we're talking about here.

I get the feeling that a solution to the overall problem is in these details somehow... if only we could put it all together in a logical and applicable manner.

It is better that 1000 cops die than one innocent civilian. Cops enter the "ring" voluntarily and should understand the risks. Innocent Americans being killed by trigger-happy cops are just going about their business. Cops should be trained to hold-off using the gun even at the risk of their own demise. That is not the case. Cops are trained that it is them against us and that the cop's lives are more important than those of innocent folks and that is wrong.

That sounds crazy. Cops are people too. Right now, they are not well screened for the job that involves carrying lethal force. We don't need adrenaline junkies who take their cues from Hollywood "tough cop" models.

March 27, 2014 at 11:24 AM, are you out of your mind? You truly think it is more acceptable for 1,000 police officers to die in the line of duty than for one innocent civilian to be killed? I'm not saying it's okay for anyone to kill an innocent, whether that innocent be a civilian, police officer, former military, or otherwise, but to say that the lives of 1,000 police officers are inconsequential when compared to the life of one civilian is an absurd notion. Police officers are citizens of this country as well as civilians and as such are extended the same unalienable rights as any other civilian, regardless of the fact that they chose to "enter the "ring" voluntarily".

Without everyone, in particular public servants, being made aware of what the law is and where it comes from, then some of those in public service will not have it in mind that people have the means to defend themselves (which of course could be seen as perfectly justifiable, as being lawful and ethically correct) in bringing disreputable behavior to account.

It of course, will require huge numbers of people knowing what it is that will literally bring the fear of God into the lives of those who maybe tempted to commit wrong-doings. The decision is the individuals to make the effort to make what it is that needs to be known.

Here then, is how to arm yourselves against unwarranted attacks, and put the fear of God in letting those know that you know, what it is as a people that is lawful without there being any excuses for what is not -

PUBLIC SERVICE, COMMON SENSE AND THE LAW – PART Ihttp://thereisnodebt.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/public-service-common-sense-and-the-law-part-i/

Any society including America that submits to having a militarized police force is incapable of resisting a false arrest, they must “comply or die”. America is now among the nations of “guilty until proved innocent.”

Did you happen to take note of racial statistics? In particular, the race of those who were killed by police? The race of the police who did the shooting may also be an interesting statistic (whether there is equal representation, as it were...). Thanks.

I did not break out the racial component. Had one racial group been obviously over represented, I believe I would have noticed. It is true, however, that police officers in big cities shot a high number of black people. Generally, police shootings occur in high crime areas of big cities. But this is not true in places like New York, Detroit,Pittsburgh, and Boston. In Aurora, Colorado, a large suburban city, the vast major of police shootings involved white people. Perhaps I am naive, but I would be surprised if racism plays a major role in police-involved shootings. It think it's more a problem of police militarism.

Cops nation wide are willing to blow your head off, if you don't stop at a stop sign and don't pull over for them. How is that a normal thought process? " Well they didn't stop and I felt threatened, because they were in a car that could be used as a weapon and they were going away from me, so I had to shoot!"

Just a thought, but this states only about death caused by officers using gunfire. How about the increasing number of cases that we see with the use of other weapons such as tasers, batons, or just brute and unnecessary force, etc. The number 607 reflects both the officers going out of there way to kill, and those who were justified but how about other deaths, like Kelly Thomas who was continuously tased and then beaten to death? Honestly though, its not only about the officers who actually kill, but that beat children for filming them, torture people for minor infractions such as littering, or use their power to sexually assault women. ALL police encounters should be filmed and ALL police should be held accountable. Policing the police is necessary. The officers that don't agree are worse than the criminals they are dealing with. http://www.policebrutality.info/

Are there actual stats to how many people were killed period. These post seem to focus on how many people were shot but i have found a multitude of videos that show uniformed officers killing people in other ways such as blunt force trauma, electrocution via taser, suffocation during restraints and the list can go on. Where would young reporters such as myself start and should the average person be concerned that they can be a potential victim of such violence.

Few and far between. We need people like you to bring to light those occurrences, but unless you are evading/resisting arrest, you stand a great chance of having a normal police encounter like the rest of us.

According to Robert Hare, U.B.C. psychologist, police are highly likely to be determined a psychopath after taking the psychopathy checklist, and the percetage is 33%. Note this article that shows that policing is 7th in the list of the top 10 jobs that attract psychopaths :

I am a retired police officer from Dade County Florida. After retiring, i moved to a different county in Florida and noticed that there is an unusually high percentage of police involved shootings here, I began the search for statistics but found, as the article states, there aren't any. I truly believe that a great number of these shootings are unjustified and would never stand up as a reasonable use of force under most circumstances. As long as these incidents continue to be investigated by their own people there will never be transparency or accountability. As a private citizen now i can tell you that i fear the police and so should you.

I'm not very surprised at many of the comments in this column. We live in a time where its OK to treat a class of people as suspect because of the way that they dress or because of their group affiliation. They are unjustifiably characterized as angry militants with an attitude and an agenda, unfairly characterized by the way they carry themselves and associate. Even thought the vast majority of them go about their lives peacefully on a daily basis, the whole group of them is charcterized by the bad behavior of a few. By a few, I mean a statistically small few. Less than one tenth of one percent of them ever fire a gun at another person in their lives. Yet they are all lumped together in judgement. It is assumed that they're out there "looking to make trouble".............The lberal reader, at this point, might assume I'm writing about the plight of black youth in America today.....I'm not.....I'm writing about the plight of a law enforcement officer in America today....The liberal media is ready to crucify them at the first hint of the unjustifiable use of force. Yet they are saddled with the hopeless task of maintaing order in the jungle of cities like Chicago and Los Angeles....With a big target on their back?......I won't waist another breath sentence trying to persuade all of you bleading heart liberals that your perception is irrepairably skewed and that it is YOU who have the agenda.........Lets stick with the themes of Education, Civics, Tolerance, and assuming Adult responsibilities at adulthood......In addition to telling youth to "pull themselves up by their boot straps", we should be telling them to "pull their pants up with a belt and "represent themselves with pride, not attitude"....God help you all...........Peace out.

*sigh*, you guys just don't get it. People want the heavy handed soviet style tactics, questionable uses of force and CLEARLY unjustified killings of citizens to stop and until it does we don't care about your plight as a cop in this country! "Lets stick with the themes of Education, Civics, Tolerance, and assuming Adult responsibilities at adulthood" <----- what the hell are you talking about? This thread is about cops discharging their firearms at the citizens they are paid to serve and protect - don't try to change the subject!

Jim, Nice analysis. Your last statement that perhaps NYC should hire better people for officers should be countered by maybe NYC should find better residents. ha well I'm not LEO and am fully aware of many documented NYC police involved shootings that rightfully question police use of force and even competence in its application, but I would also remind you that not many "better people" are willing to be underpaid and deal with the types of situations cops have to walk into on a daily basis.

In a "free" and data driven society such as the US today, one would expect this sort of statistic to be readily available. I think that the stats do exist but they are deliberately withheld from the Public. Law Enforcement not only lies and extorts, it kills. They have a lot of dirt to hide.In today's world, camera phones and YouTube are beginning to expose this. If we are a free society we have a right to this knowledge. This is happening in every jurisdiction in the country. I have seen it first hand, as have most others. But no one questions anything. It is disturbing.

There are in excess of 500,000 non-military police in the USA, perhaps more. In any given year, they collectively shoot to death 400 or 500 people who, according to the author, are largely armed and engaging in criminal behavior. As sad as that sounds, I shed no tears for dangerous criminals getting shot in their line of work. I'd be far more interested in hearing about those who were killed that were not posing an immediate threat, not engaging in a crime, and otherwise truly innocent. The sheer volume of police contacts of one form or another means mistakes will happen and those should be treated harshly if reasonably preventable but making mountains out of molehills is not going to convince the general public for the need of change.

Look at Wikipedia's "List of police killings in the US" and you will see a range of circumstances in which citizens are killed,some of which killings are brutal and senseless. Nearly every day someone is shot to death by a cop. Nearly every day some innocent bystander is killed by a police car pursuing someone else. Tough, nationwide federal standards need to be enacted to protect ordinary people from cowboy cops. Many victims are mentally disordered persons or persons who are too slow to drop a presumed weapon or persons who are just fed up with being bullied by cops. For example, last year a woman called police about her 43-yr-old son's acting suicidal. When the police arrived, the son allegedly waved a pair of scissors at them. The police shot and killed the son. Lucky mother, huh? I think that incident occurred in Houston. In Austin in 2013, a man called the police after noticing a strange pit bull in his yard. He was holding a shotgun when police arrived, presumably in case the pit bull attacked him. After failing to drop the shotgun when ordered (maybe it would have gone off if dropped, maybe he didn't wan to damage the gun), the police shot and killed the man -- he turned out to be a rifle instructor in Austin.

Now this is funny statement. Someone is citing "Wikipedia" as a viable container of truth. Even if the data is accurate the source is questionable at best. My recommendation for many of you including the grammar busting educational elitist is to check your facts and leave your emotions at home. Check into what CISM is all about and understand people needs. The problems are not necessarily psychological they may be stress induced or stress related. Not everything requires a doctor. As far officer involved deaths go in America one needs to understand the average person has a natural aversion to killing another human being. Mental toughness is a highly desirable trait required in military, law enforcement and other highly stress related jobs where loss of life may occur. Please understand that there are opportunities that exist to help law enforcement officers to understand these complexities and resolve the emotional issues that many of you are discussing or dancing around. Two of the most beneficial tools in dealing with this and other careers are the following: Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) and the use of a Certified individual in the area of Survival Mindset. The use of these two tools will decompress nearly individual or group dealing with the topic discussed here. Good luck in your discuss for I fear many of you are just talkers and not doers.

The Wikipedia site I mentioned summarizes newspaper articles. If so many police are taking the "CISM" and other courses/training, why are they still killing people they could just as easily wound, especially at short range? By the way, it's "data are", not "data is." I have no idea what "grammar busting" means; maybe you're an illiterate.

I'm currently writing an article about the aforementioned Austinite, John Schaefer, who was gunned down after reporting a pit bull incident. The grand jury decided not to indict Jonathan Whitten, the Austin police officer who shot Schaefer. A notable statement from the affidavit was that Schaefer refused to put up his gun when asked to and when Whitten reached for it, Schaefer drew the gun and pointed it at Whitten causing Whitten to shoot Schaefer twice in the chest. I was wondering if you had a usable email you'd be willing to share with me, so I can discuss more in depth with you about this subject? I tried emailing the edinboro.edu one, and it bounced back. My email is hlchen02@gmail.com, so if possible, I'd love to get in contact with you.

Lucy, were there any witnesses to this tragedy? If not, why should we believe Whitten's account? Cops around San Francisco have been exonerated for killing black males. Oscar Grant was filmed in a subdued position by several people before a cop shot him to death at a subway station. The cop claimed he thought he was holding his taser instead of a pistol. He lied and it was a feeble excuse to say he was going to taser Grant when Grant was already subdued in a sitting position with his hands behind his back.

I live in England and we dont encounter a great amount of trigger happy police, but police brutality using tazers and out of sight public beatings are on the increase, Domestic violence of uniformed individuals beating their wives has always been high on the reasons for their wives divorcing them. There are blood tests being carried out on individuals who favour the uniform jobs, and those who dont to attempt to find differences in their genetics, it has long been theorized that within the human species, there is a sub species, rather like a pre-programmed "robot" that exists amongst us, It may take many more years of this research to conclude its findings, but researchers are getting closer to unravelling the mystery of why some humans exist to follow orders that the majority of our species would consider "inhuman" .whatever the circumstance.

How many police departments conduct random drug and alcohol testing of their armed personnel? How many of these officers were under the influence of drugs when they killed an innocent person?Of all the professions that should mandate random drug testing law enforcement should be at the top of that list.

What this tells me is we have a bunch of cowards as police officers. They're indoctrinated in their training in a "us against them" mindset.I think that they should no longer be allowed to carry firearms. They have their non-lethal weapons they can employ when necessary. Gun could be issued only in extreme circumstances.

mi66gt. Considering what you have stated. This is my observation of you. First of all you are probably someone who is mad at a police officer because of an incident that involved you and most likely your 1966 Ford Mustang GT (mi66gt). The police officer was doing his job, gave you a ticket, or perhaps put you in jail for D.U.I. and possibly had to handcuff you to keep you from other violent issues you may have had at the time. Second, you are not a real man or woman that has the ability to control your actions very well. When you can't, you are unable to admit that you are wrong and take the punishment that fits the occasion even in your everyday life. Third, you haven't an inkling of an idea what it takes to put YOUR LIFE on the line to be a police officer. You (if qualified) don't have the mental or physical ability or fortitude to do the job of a police officer, especially with this attitude. You just consider yourself as (I'm always right !) and the Cops are always wrong ! No hard feelings, but this is: Just my observation of you mi66gt. You just might have what it takes to be a law enforcement officer. If you do, and you qualify, perhaps you should give it consideration. If not, then look at a reserve officer program and see for yourself what they do to protect the lives of others and property. It's a rough job, not so good pay, very little appreciation until those that need their help calls them. They are looked down upon by all who get into trouble and confronted by the police. Then there is a sence of security when the police come there to protect you, or save your life (or an immediate family members life) even when in a dangerous or life threatning situation. The police will place their lives on the line to protect you and anyone else when called for. There can be any type of condition which can happen to anyone at anytime and calls for either a police officer and lets not forget fire department and emergency rescue personal as well. These are the people who aren't in their profession for the Fame, Glory, or Money, but for the satisifaction of being able to help others. Much like that of our military, of which many of the people who serve in the areas of law, fire, and emergency have also served. So if you have been in the military, you took an oath also. Just as well take the time to re-examine your thoughts about the police. If you still feel the same way then I am right about my observation.

I am no psychiatris by any means. However I have served as a police officer and know how it is to save lives. Infact, two by physically pinching off arterial damage. One from a gun shot wound, and another from an auto accident, as well as many other serious cases where violence in process was the cause. No, I have never discharged my firearm on or off duty except on the fireing range. I am no longer in law-enforcement. I am retired.

I am a retired white police officer, with a high school education, who never shot anyone. I could have legally shot many, most were older and white. A police officer makes a decision in a second that will be analyzed for months. You don't know how you would respond until you are in that situation. All the officers I have know in the last 30 years had high school educations, most had college degrees.

Police officers put their lives on the line to protect sorry ass folks who haven't a clue of the criminal elelment out there. Yes they make mistakes but SCOTUS has ruled on these types of shootings and allowed fellow officers to determine if the response was appropriate given the experience and training of similar officers in a similar situation. Not a perfect scenario but I would rather see vigilante-ism rather than police because liberals would not be able to survive.

Police officers put their lives on the line to protect sorry ass folks who haven't a clue of the criminal elelment out there. <------ This statement is a perfect example of what is wrong here. Cops look on the people they are supposed to serve with contempt and then wonder why everybody hates them. And by the way, just because SCOTUS rules a certain way on something doesn't mean it is right. Fellow officers determining whether another's response in a shooting was appropriate is an extreme conflict of interest - it's the fox guarding the hen house, period.

•Crime fighting has taken its toll. Since the first recorded police death in 1791, there have been over 20,000 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Currently, there are 20,267 names engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

•A total of 1,501 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 10 years, an average of one death every 58 hours or 150 per year. There were 100 law enforcement officers killed in 2013.

•On average, over the last decade, there have been 58,261 assaults against law enforcement each year, resulting in 15,658 injuries.

Okay, I have read a lot of criticism about the police and a lot of people assuming the majority of police are low educated and low impulse bullies. Here is the reality. I am a police officer. The majority of the officers I work with are highly trained and intelligent good people. I have a Master's degree and so do several others in my department.

We are not trigger happy and have a great deal of impulse control. I carrying a gun and on a daily basis I get yelled at and treated like crap by someone during the course of my duties and I don't shoot them or even yell at them.

How about this quote "before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes". LEO's deal with difficult situations and the worst people on a daily basis and yet most of the time we don't kill anyone. Contrary to popular belief on this web page, we don't want to shoot or kill anyone if we can help it. An officer's job is to protect and save lives, but sometimes we have to make the decision to take a life to protect the community and ourselves within a split second. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback.

Also, I don't appreciate the anonymous person who pschologically evaluated all LEO's as being mostly made up of people with low impulse control and lacking the ability to articulate their choices. Even a trained pyschologist, which I am sure you are not, would not make that kind of blanket statement not having personally examined and evaluated each and every officer personally. This kind of statement and belief is a perfect example of discrimination. The definition being "making a distinction against a person based on the group, class, or category to which that person belongs, rather than on individual merit".

One final note Mr. or Ms. Anonymous; Contrary to your belief my department and the other departments I am familiar with do not want to hire just anyone who will merely "act" without thought. In fact, we train regularly to be prepared, not have tunnel vision, and think before we act.

US police kill about 9 times the per capita rate of citizens when compared to Australia.Australia thinks it's figures are too high so does police training to reduce it: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/half-shot-police-mentally-ill

The US doesn't even bother to keep statistics. WTF?The US government has statistics on how many stamp collectors are in each state. Why is this data not kept?

Want a reality check that makes news?US mass murderers kill 900 people in 7 years http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/21/mass-shootings-domestic-violence-nra/1937041/

Yet, US police kill 607 in one year and all we get is defense of it.

Just to put this into perspective. US police kill more people in 3 months than Australian police do in 22 years and the Australian police are being retrained to reduce this figure.

I know what English cops are like and the landscape has changed with SOCA.. forget genetics, Its cultural and social conditioning that needs examination. Not some 'Francis Gorton' eugenics club type statistic that lead nowhere. However, psychopathy is a likely primer. Have a look at the Milgram experiment to answer your question. A bit further on look at Harlow and Suomi's experiments with 'rape rack monkeys,' you'll see some people don't need to be ordered 'or' told to be violent.. They will commit violent acts of their own cognizance. Anyway SOCA have extended powers in England and wales covering HM Revenue & Customs and immigration as well as regular policing and are un-uniformed which i perceive as a further erosion of civil liberties and indeed been called the British FBI in the press.

Local Police typically have little education, unlike the state police who have degrees and extensive professional training, just as true of federal officers. I was afraid of the town cops in the small town where I grew up, and I was a rather timid academic female. The town cops were the guys you went to school with who were the hoods/greasers/punks and you knew they would be on one side or the other of law. I knew a number of cops as a young adult, and it was commonly repeated to family and friends, that it was a common practice to have an unregistered gun handy in the event that a citizen got killed...for "planting." It is not so much racial but economic lines....cops don't treat the poor with the same respect, not to mention concern, as the middle classs or wealthy. They are most often "authority/power" freaks. Come on....you know it is true!!!

Okay, I don't know where you grew up but, in the small town I grew up the police were not uneducated guys who were hoods/greasers/punks in school. I know you stated that you were a shy academic female but, I find it hard to believe that you were very academic given your myopic views about police officers.

The kind of blanket evaluative statements you just made about them is a perfect example of discrimination. The definition being "making a distinction against a person based on the group, class, or category to which that person belongs, rather than on individual merit".

Let me educate you a bit. I am female and a police officer. I grew up in a small town where I did not fear the police. Most of my friends were not police officers and I was not a hood/greaser or punk. I was actually very shy and studious. I now work for a municipal police departement and not the State Police. I consider myself intellignet and competent. I have a Master's degree and I have co-workers and friends at other municipal police departments that have Masters degrees or Bachelors degrees.

We do not have unregistered guns to use as throw aways and I find that remark ignorant and insulting. Unlike you I don't judge people based on what group they belong to. I treat all people with respect no matter what socioeconomic group they belong or what color they are, unless they behavior dictates otherwise.

So, unless you have some credible statistical analysis to back up claims about us low educated corrupt police officers I suggest you hush your mouth. Subjective perceptions are not fact.

No mention of the number of arrests made in that time frame. Lets put this into prospective. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/persons-arrested/persons-arrested

That is arrests, not total contacts made by LEO's during your time frame. So add millions more to that 12,408,899 number. But lets just use that arrest number. 12,408,899 arrests with 1,146 police shootings means just slightly more than .00009% of the time deadly force is used.

Excellent point. The author doesn't really provide a broader context for the number of shootings, such as total arrests, confrontations etc. That number is nine fifty thousandths of a percent.

While zero percent shootings would be best, the fact that the percentage is so low, combined with the majority of the offenders had weapons, means that there is hardly an epidemic of police shootings as portrayed by the media.

Jim, you fail to mention these statistics: According to Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 2008, there are about 765,000 sworn police officers employed at the roughly 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in America. How many people are shot and killed by those officers every year in the United States?

According to FBI data, 410 Americans were justifiably killed by police. To put that into a little more context, note that civilians acting in self-defense killed 310 persons during that same time period.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics says that one in five persons over 12 years of age has a face- to- face police contact during the study year for a total of 45 million contacts.

Force was reported by arrestees in less than one percent of those contacts!

If your information is correct, which I don't doubt, then the FBI is underestimating the number of killings by at least 25%. They claim that it has risen since 2011 but their figure is only 461 for 2013 compared to your supposedly lower figure of 607 for 2011.

Also Greg Swamp's comment about race is correct; however the reason for it is almost certainly that they're herded into ghettos without the resources that they need to educate themselves and maintain a beneficial economic system. Jonathan Kozol's work is worth serious considerations when trying to understand the reasons behind this.

Really ? That means that your number would be 210 bullets/shots fired in US whole of 2013. We all know that number is a bit low yeah ?If you continue to use size against smaller countries, you would loose all the time anyway coming to statistics.

Hey Stig. Norway does not have the diverse population we have or the drugs and criminals pouring over the border. Hordes of unwed mothers creating more fatherless gang bangers everyday. How about Japan? There the police search every citizens home once a year. The diversity of our population is one of the reasons we have different demographics than places like Norway or Japan. The funny part is without the nasty old, violent USA most of the world would be under Nazi or Imperial Japan rule right now. Norway's contribution to the allied victory was extremely limited since they caved almost without any resistance at all. The German force that took Oslo in WW -II would have a hell of a lot more casualties taking my tiny town in Montana... "The first troops to occupy Oslo entered the city brazenly, marching behind a German military brass band." A brass band on POINT? Yeah, it seems there are more sheople in Norway than people who will stand up. Heck the Jews in Warsaw kept the Nazi ground troops out for a time with only a handful of firearms.... So don't tell me how bad America is. Without us you would likely be in the German Army hurding some non-Aryan into a furnace someplace.

Our country is run by laws that govern every citizen. And our criminal justice system although not perfect is the best in the world. To say that police officers should not included in all the rights and protections that our system gives to everyone that is arrested or under investigation is ridiculous. Every "investigator" or prosecutor works for the State or Federal government. To use the excuse that just bc a police officer works for the State or Federal government so there is a conflict of interest is absurd. Many many MANY police officers. Public servants. Politicians. Garbage men etc are investigated everyday and prosecuted to the fullest extent. To say that for these people we should have some mock open civilian public investigation is a complete mockery of our judicial system. Police officers are given a broader use of deadly force then the average citizen. These are laws on the books in all 50 states and also on the Federal level. The vast majority of the use of deadly force according to the statistics you showed are situations in which any average Joe who put in the same situation could legally use deadly force. The ones that to the average citizen may seem unquestionable for the most part fall into the legal use of deadly force that officers are granted. The other 5 percent like your numbers showed were deemed excessive and those officers were prosecuted. Are there bad cops out there? Sure. Just like there are bad doctors. Priest's. Teachers. Etc.

Where is the data White VS Nonwhite in these shootings. You have all the data except that! Could it be you were surprised to find White Shootings at the top of the list? In todays " Racist " world I would think that would be a statistic you would consider important.

It is an important statistic. My data is based on media reportage of police-involved shootings. Reporters don't always indicate the race of the parties involved. Without photographs, it would be guesswork on my part. I didn't want to do that. It is my opinion, however, that officers use deadly force when they feel threatened. Race does not come into their thinking.

I would expect that the substantial majority of investigation would result in exoneration, finding that the officer was fully justified. In a minority of cases the investigation might find that the officer(s) acted inappropriately and unacceptably, but not criminally. And in a few cases the investigation might find that the officer's actions appeared to be criminal and reccommend prosecution.

Having a process for independently investigating and publicly reporting cases in that middle ground - inappropriate and unaccetptable but not criminal - is VERY important. The public is becoming hostile to the police because the internal investigations, if they happen at all, almost always publicly result in 100% exoneration of the officer as having done nothing at all inappopriate. There are problems with making it binary - unless the officer actually goes to jail (which is, somewhat appropriately, rare), then every tactic and decision they took was completely justified. There needs to be some shades of grey, some level of truth telling and accountability below the level of prison time.

The accountability might be an official reprimand, or other administrative sanctions up to suspension or dismissal of an officer who should not be serving; or it might be a change in departmental policies or more training because the core problem is not the individual officer and something does need to be changed (but the officer does not deserve punishment).

In the minoirty of cases where a criminal action HAS occurred, it would be somewhat more likely to be prosecuted.

Why do all this? The first thing is that the truth needs to be investigated and told, separately from criminal proceedings; bad things hide in those shadows. The second is that we need to deal better with the few officers who are incompetent in various dangerous ways or overly aggressive or have other serious issues. The third is that we need to make the departments fix the issues which are theirs, and which get lost when the focus is inappropriately on individual officers. And perhaps the most important is that we need to regain more trust among the public.

Currently the investigations of officer related shooting look very strongly like a whitewash, that virtually always completely exonerates the officer, no matter the circumstances. The proceeding are usualy close, and the snippets of final reports released to the public months later are all cookie-cutter "nothing to see here, move along" recipes. Since the system is objectively biased in that direction (see above notes on DAs), this is exactly what one would expect if there is almost no truly functioning accountability. If behind the scenes there really is an honest investigation and serious consequences, nobody in the public sees any evidence of it (there probably are good and unbiased investigation in the very best departments, but who can tell?).

Officers have an understandable and justified desire not to be "tried" by kangaroo courts responding to political pressure rather than the facts of a case. Any system reform has to address that, and not go to the opposite extreme from the current closed door exoneration system. A new system of open investigation needs to be devised by good cops and good citizens (who do not "hate cops"), and it needs to be separate from criminal prosecution for all the reasons above. It should allow some degree of adversarial process, unlike grand jury's which hear from only one side (grand juries almost always bring an indictment against a citizen if the DA wants one, but almost never do against officers). Turning to the opposite side, where the legitimate perspectives of police are not heard, would also be an abuse of justice.

Anybody who takes this as just trying to cover up for the cops is too polarized in one direction, and anybody who thinks it must be motivated by hating all copes is too polarized in the other direction. We need to hear from the people in the middle, who appreciate most of what police do, but who see the need for reform to better deal with the problems that still exist.

The large majority of officers would never need to be concerned about such an investigation, and most of those involved with shootings should be more believably exonerated by an independent investigation than by the current secretive and (understandable) biased reviews. And it would be good for the officers in some cases where the investigation shows that even some inappropriate actions were more the fault of the department than of the officer on the scene.

Jim are you aware of the project Kyle Wagner has begun? It may be of interest to you and I'm sure Kyle would appreciate your help. http://regressing.deadspin.com/were-compiling-every-police-involved-shooting-in-americ-1624180387

Arm all citizens and Remove all guns from on duty cops and give them Megaphones,then after hours of deliberation call the new swat team made up of Grandmothers who will get you to come out with the smell of a couple of their great Cakes and Pies ,and if the accused criminals still dont come out , then we will call in the reserves ,the reserves are the what grandma call the music blasters,which the army uses on their enemy, ,hey no one was killed or sued in this show of love and compassion and we all lived to tell the story to our grand kids, but first fire your chief of police ,and mayor,and general city manger, and keep the federal government out of your local county and city arenas and give everyone in your community a tax break by giving them a GARDEN TOWER and if you need more of a reality kick then google whistle blower RANDY CRAMER US Marine Corps Special Section

First of all not everyone who shoots someone has a trial. That being said if a shooting is found to be justified (cop or not) 9 times out of 10 it never even makes it to trial because it was never charged as a crime, there is no need for a trial if a crime never occurred. Simple logic !!!!!

So far from the first of the year there has been 395 law enforcement shootings. 30 so far this month may 13, 2015, April 101, march 115, Feb. 85, Jan 91 there is something wrong with that. when I started doing my research I was very surprised that there are more white people killed then any other race all people should be mad as hell. Since 911 there has been 5,000 people killed by law enforcement that is the same number of solders killed in Iraq there is something very wrong with that. Remember that is only the people who died. I do not for the life of me know why the government does not keep records of police involved shootings. We should be raising hell about that.

From 2002 to 2013 a total of 639,908 law enforcement officers in the USAhave been assaulted/injured/killed by felonious assault (FBI UCR Database) The amount of lives they save are 10 fold that number.The amount of conflicts that are resolved peacefully are also staggering compared to the lives lost.We live in a society where propose have opinion but no knowledge.

The cases of massacres and killings are the results of mere self centered attitude of humans and ignorance of others liking. If anyone of you guys are interested in firearms like me then they can take help form the MA Gun License to find guns of your choice. Guns are not the killers, its the human who kill others.

It's amusing how easily some people seem to use the term "trigger happy" when defining the actions of a police officer. Do they even comprehend the meaning of "trigger happy?" I wonder. How easily they label a cop as "trigger happy" when that cop has never fired his weapon at any other time in his entire career. The one time in his career when he has been put in a situation where he had to fire his weapon, and someone labels him or officers like him as "trigger happy".

The GE Mound Case

SWAT Madness and the Militarization of the American Police: A National Dilemma

"[A] powerful work . . . well researched . . . Recommended." Choice

LITERARY QUOTATIONS: GENRE

LITERARY QUOTATIONS: GENRE is a compilation of informative and entertaining quotes by writers, editors, critics, journalists, and literary agents on the subject of literary genre. The quotes also touch on the subjects of craft, creativity, publishing, and the writing life.

Contributors

A graduate of Westminster College (Pennsylvania) and Vanderbilt University Law School, I am the author of twelve non-fiction books on crime, criminal investigation, forensic science, policing, and writing. I have been nominated twice for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allen Poe Award in the Best Fact Crime Category. As a former FBI agent, criminal investigator, author, and professor of criminal justice at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, I have been interviewed numerous times on television and radio and for the print media.
For more information about me, please visit my web site at http://jimfisher.edinboro.edu.